title: Brief screening tests versus clinical staging in senile dementia of the Alzheimer type.
abstract: Several brief screening tests of cognitive function were compared with a reliable and valid global rating of the presence and severity of senile dementia of the Alzheimer type, the Washington University Clinical Dementia Rating (CDR). The six-item Short Blessed Test, the Short Portable Mental Status Questionnaire, the 26-item Blessed Information-Memory-Concentration Test, the Blessed Dementia Scale, and the Blessed Dementia Scale-Cognitive were able to discern both the presence of dementia and its severity. The six-item Short Blessed Test is preferred as a screening test because of its brevity, administration to the subject only, inclusion of a learning task, reliability, and neuropathologic validity. Evidence is presented for the convergent validity of the Initial Subject Protocol, used to derive the Clinical Dementia Rating.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medicine, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri.
authors.forename: P B
authors.initials: PB
authors.lastname: Davis
authors.forename: J C
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Morris
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Grant
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000544:Alzheimer Disease / Q000145:classification / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000503:physiopathology; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000145:classification / Q000175:diagnosis; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; D011594:Psychometrics